


The curse of the high seas of anxiety

by lulahbelle



Category: Withnail & I (1986)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-01
Updated: 2013-02-01
Packaged: 2017-11-27 19:53:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 882
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/665815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lulahbelle/pseuds/lulahbelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes it's vitally important to spend your last 12p on lemon juice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The curse of the high seas of anxiety

**Author's Note:**

> This is a short little lol/character piece.
> 
> I wrote this aaages ago for a writing challenge, the prompt was lemons and I am sufficiently detached from it that I almost find it funny. 
> 
> It's G rated and very short both of which are massive rarities for me. 
> 
> Also sorry to say it but Withnail's ludicrous bout of hypochondria may bear superficial resemblance to my own.

Marwood had once considered it an injustice that he always had to do the shopping singlehanded. Now he rued the moment Withnail had offered to help.

Dawdling around, coat stressed to a composition just above tatters, Withnail was just a nuisance, his idea of aid extending only so very far as dropping ever heavier, ever more unwanted things into the basket.

Things that were unfeasible too, like pickles.

'What on earth would he do with them?' Marwood demanded to know of him, returning them tiredly to the shelf.

'What on earth would he do without them?' Withnail had replied.

It was a little while following this that Withnail, with full force and barely looking, turned and threw a small vial of lemon juice into the basket.

Having come from such a distance that it barely made it, it chimed alarmingly loud against the bottle of whisky settled at the bottom, drawing the attention of several other shoppers as well as Marwood himself.

Furious at the risk to the whisky, Marwood overcame his terror of anger and turned at once upon Withnail with all his might and fury and regarded him with a severe, intense look of disapproval.

Until he realised Withnail was about to turn around, at which point he immediately took the look off his face, heart racing in anxiety.

He then, almost imperceptibly, put the lemon juice back on the shelf.

They continued on in their mutually dawdling way, Withnail not saying a thing because he was sulking, although not yet about the lemon juice, for Marwood had removed it unobserved.

Marwood turned some cans around on the shelf and tried,"Maybe we can have spaghetti for tea? It might not be so bad."

"There is absolutely no way possible for that to be true!"

It was at the cessation of this comment that Withnail cast an errant eye over their basket. Withnail was never idle when you expected he might be.

"Where on earth's my lemon juice!?"

"Look, we haven't a lot of money. I really think we ought to spend it on sensible things."

Withnail's outrage angrily barged into the back end of such reason.

"Vitamin C is perfectly sensible! I mean it's not something any of us can afford to lack!"

Marwood's inherent hypochondria caused him to wibble. What indeed if he did get ill, he would be glad of citrus then. He hated being sick. He didn't want to die. Still no, no. He fought his anxiety tooth and nail, they didn't need lemon juice, they needed soup, something wholesome, filling.

"You're insane! And we're not spending my last 12 pence on lemon juice."

Withnail was stupefied by disagreement, all wide, bolt blue eyes, so Marwood took this opportunity to escape from him, walking steadily if mock casually down the aisle, but all the way he could feel the eyes of the rangy, actor hard through his back, like acid, dissolving him slowly.

"Look. I was hoping that I wouldn't have to disclose this."

At that, with dread, Marwood stopped.

_Oh dear._

"...I need it. There is something quite amiss with my insides that I need to correct."

Advancing on him, Withnail continued until he stood before him. Marwood's blue eyes met those impossibly luminous orbs of Withnail's. He tried to keep his gaze stern, trying to steady the temptation to anxiously probe Withnail's reasoning. It always had a certain persuasive power if spoken at the actor's pitch that he had perfected and he would not cave into it.

On Withnail went,"...I didn't want to tell you, because I know how mindlessly distraught you are likely to get."

Again Marwood needled him with his blue eyes, appearing to be the picture of unconcern, concentrating on a stern brow, as if acting in an charity advert, silent, as his, rapid panting breath and fluttering heart begged him to shriek in terror.

_There was something wrong with Withnail? Maybe he was dying, oh no, Marwood didn't like doing the sodding shopping on his own, let alone living._

"Well, don't you even care what's wrong with me."

"What is it?" Marwood said in his best calm, professional voice, the kind of voice he would use for a voiceover.

"I believe I may have contracted scurvy!!!"

The wind beneath his voice was best described as a tremble enacted for the sake of appearances. It worked.

"Scurvy? Oh God!" Marwood was instantly at panic stations, people were jumping over the side of the boat in his mind to escape the raging high seas, like lemurs flinging themselves off the ledge, off Beachy Head whole.

_Scurvy, god scurvy GOD!!_

"Indeed," Withnail said seeming to be only just restraining a sob.

"Oh God what can we do?" Marwood said.

"Well my good man I believe the only known cure is lemon juice."

Marwood had heard himself of something like that being the case.

Terror made his reaction instant.

"Okay we'll get several bottles!" He said, scrabbling to empty all the other food out onto the floor, as he made his way to the aisle where the product was.

When there he held the basket as Withnail swept 4 or 5 bottles from the shelf in a flinging flurry.

As Marwood paid he seriously doubted he would ever risk going shopping alone again.


End file.
